My library was recently featured in StateTech magazine. We recently upgraded our data center to a Nutanixhyperconverged infrastructure (click the links to read more about that). It’s pretty cool, and is already saving my IT staff time, and has killed a bottleneck we were having on the back-end. So yay for that!

Video – It’s on this page. It’s not really embeddable, even though it has an embed code I can use. It was looking for evil flash … , so click through and watch it. If for nothing else than to see a really nice-looking video! They sent a video team out to do it, complete with producers. There were multiple takes. They dabbed makeup on my head. You should watch it 🙂

So why did we decide to be featured in a vendor’s trade magazine? Because it’s good publicity for us locally – it shows that the library is being responsible and is moving forward with technology, which our community wants us to do (they have shared that before).

And it’s one little way that we can help the larger library community. By sharing what we do in a tech trade magazine that usually features city and state government IT projects, I think it helps give readers (i.e., those IT people that municipal libraries often deal with) an understanding of what THEIR local libraries should be doing. It’s a way to get city IT staff on the library’s side when it comes to budget time and technology upgrades.

There are two articles that have been recently published about my library (Topeka & Shawnee County Public Library).

Here are the two articles:

Article #1:Digital Inclusion in Topeka, published in Library Journal. I wrote this one with Rob Banks (COO at the library). It focuses on some of the digital inclusion projects we are working on in the community. I’m a bit biased, but I think we’re doing some good work in Topeka!

Why is this useful? Well … it’s certainly fun to have my library recognized for the good work we do. It also gives you something to share with your community. We shared these article on social media and to our board. Sometimes this type of recognition can be shared via a press release to local and regional news outlets, too.

Most libraries (and pretty much any other type of organization) has a few customers (or non-customers) who haven’t visited for awhile, or who think the library is an outdated concept.

So show people what you do – share these types of articles with them. It’s one of many ways to show your continuing relevance in today’s ever-changing world.